Engineers at Japan’s Fukushima plant continue work on emptying highly radioactive water from one of the nuclear reactors. The latest tests show that radiation levels in the sea near the damaged facility have spiked. On Tuesday, Japan raised the level of nuclear alert at the plant to the maximum of seven, putting it on a par with the Chernobyl disaster. Recovery efforts came under threat as series of powerful aftershocks hit the area near the power station. It came a month after the massive earthquake and tsunami devastated the country, leaving over 13 thousand people dead. Monitoring stations around the world have been picking up small amounts of radioactive particles spreading from Fukushima.